Connecticut Post, 4/18/2011EDUCATION MATTERS

Africans find inspiration, ideas in Bridgeport schools

By Linda Conner Lambeck Staff Writer

BRIDGEPORT — All Bertha Mohube, a South African educator, could
say is, “ It’s so big,” as she toured the shiny new
68,333-square-foot Inter­district Discovery Magnet School on Park
Avenue, which at the moment is home to 85 students.

Back home in the rural South Africa mining town where she teaches,
space is in short supply and it is not unusual for class sizes to swell
to 40. There, Mo­hube has only her story­telling skills to
motivate students — not all the bells and whistles available
at the Discovery School.

For three weeks, Mo­hube was part of a six­member delegation
from the Royal Bafoken Region of South Africa visiting schools in Bridgeport
and Fairfield County. The trip was made possible by Ro­tary Club
International and local Rotary clubs, which together raised $75,000.
The grant also helped send a local team to the North-West Province
of South Africa in January.

Nancy Riella, a Rotary International member who helped organize the
trip, said the two-way exchange is a pilot program between the Connecticut
and South African Rotary clubs. The American team went to South Africa
to develop a training program that would best assist the South African
team. That is not to say the Americans did not learn a lot as well.
The two groups will continue to exchange ideas through a Housatonic
Community College online course.

Lindsay Davis, a kin­dergarten teacher at Wil­bur Cross School,
said it was amazing to step out of her comfort zone.

“We might not think that we have all the resources we need, but when
you take a look at some of the pro­grams over there, you see how much they
can do with so little,” Davis said.

Davis was also struck by how well students behaved.

“ In the three weeks we were there, I don’t think I saw a single
behavior is­sue whatsoever,” she said.

She said she was in­spired by how the South African teachers har­nessed
the use of music and movement.

Heather Ferguson, a speech and language pa­thologist for Bridgeport
schools who went on the trip, said she was amazed to watch Mohube tell
a sto­ry with no props, just her eyes and expression. “ The
teachers there were amaz­ing.

When you look a their needs, it’s hard to com­plain about
things we don’t have here,” said Ferguson.

The South African visi­tors live in an area ruled by Kgosi Leruo
Molotlegi, a 43-year- old king who wants preschoolers pre­pared
for early childhood education. Rustenburg, the main city in the region,
sits in a valley where the main source of income is work­ing in
platinum mines.

Sean Tunmer, program manager for Early Child­hood Development in
the region, said education in that area has suffered over the past
two decades. The region is home to about 15 preschools serving about
1,200 children. There is not much in the way of teacher training.

Like anywhere, Tun­mer said, parents want the best for their children.

“ It’s the access to quality that is lacking,” he said.

Schools in both coun­tries have similar issues.

Both Bridgeport and Rustenburg have schools where students speak multiple
languages and who have lost parents. In South Africa, the loss is due
largely to HIV-AIDS.

Maria Semenya, a se­nior teacher from the Se­mane Early Learning
Centre, liked the parent involvement she saw here.

Others were interested in the way preschool classes are organized with
centers.

At Housatonic, the visi­tors met with Laurie Noe, coordinator of
Early Child­hood Education programs at the college, to set up an
online training program that will involve 12 teachers from South African
and 12 teachers studying at Hou­satonic. Noe, who was on the trip
to South Africa, showed them online links that would help them de­sign “centers” that
focus on such topics as blocks, num­bers, art and reading.

Obakeng Khunou, a teacher from the Boepa-Tsopa preschool, said her
surprise was in seeing no squatters whatsoever in Bridgeport, even
though the area, like theirs, is labeled as having high poverty.

During their visit to the Discovery School, preschoolers and kinder­gartners
stood in three straight lines and ser­enaded their visitors to
a song about the days of the week, sung to the tune of the Addams family
theme song. Along the walls, the academic progress of the school’s
kindergar­ten class was documented with graph charts.

In the library, the visi­tors got tips from Teresa Cherry- Cruz,
director of speech, language and hearing for the district, about ways
to build vocab­ulary and oral language skills. The visitors left
with a packet of ideas and homemade yarn dolls to use back home.

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